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Great Waltham Cricket Club

Scorecard

Ingatestone & Fryerning 1st XI v Great Waltham Cricket Club 1st XI on Sat 23 Jun 2012 at 1.30 p m
Great Waltham Cricket Club Lost By 2 runs.

Match report Cracking effort in a game that swung both ways... this is the report you'll get to read in the Chronicle later in the week.

***A seesaw battle saw Ingatestone do just enough as Great Waltham slipped to yet another narrow defeat.

A 3 wicket burst from Matt Duggan helped reduced Ingatestone to 64-4 but a dropped catch enabled the innings to recover courtesy of Valentine (37) and Bates (49) with a vital 5th wicket partnership of 71, Bates punishing the short leg-side boundary with a number of maximums. When both departed, 'Gate were wobbling at 155-7 but Waltham failed to push home the advantage and Paul Fletcher hammered 46* to steer his side to a more competitive 223-9.

In reply, Adam Pudney tore through the top order reducing Great Waltham to 29-4 but a 5th wicket stand of 111 between Craig Swan (66) and Dave Kemp (38) dragged Waltham back into the game. Swan looked set to win the game single-handedly but on his dismissal the game hung in the balance and Waltham cautiously edged closer to their target largely thanks to a plethora of Extras. With luck and decisions seemingly against them, Waltham required 15 from the last 2 overs and with a boundary required from the final delivery, Waltham could only scramble 2 byes.***

In recent weeks it's been brought to my attention that my weekly write ups are read/enjoyed/closely monitored (delete as applicable) by a wide cross section of players/ex-players/committee members (delete as applicable).

This season it's been hard to find the time to pen anything of tremendous entertainment and insight... and writing about another defeat is never easy.

Specifically for the lads who played today - and in the last 2 or 3 games for that matter - keep your heads up. I can't fault your effort, commitment or determination to put things right. Small margins are deciding games. You do make your own luck but it's been in short supply this season. Our inability to ram home any advantage and maintain the momentum in a game combined with some schoolboy errors have not helped our cause. Winning is a habit but - sadly - so is losing. And it's a habit we need to break. The table doesn't lie but we're no where near as bad as the table suggests. We haven't been blown away by any team (yet) and just as we've lost 7 games on the bounce, I genuinely believe we can turn the corner and string the same number of victories together... but we need to start soon.

I'm encouraged by the dressing room spirit... we need to keep that going in the 2nd half of the season. We'll come through this.

Now...

I've had an axe to grind all season about the directive concerning leg side wides and the 66 wide balls in this game would suggest that the standard of village cricket is slowly improving from the 68 that were bowled in Game 2. On average each game has been 9 overs longer... it's depressing that I've gone to the lengths of working that statistic out.

It's been pointed out to me in 'discussions' that it wasn't the League committee who came up with this directive but the Captains & Umpires. A point I accept but I was not one of those Captains and I don't think I was in the minority. In fairness and on balance - what the directive has done is ensured consistency.

At least it did until yesterday.

The Match Rules clearly state:

Wide Balls (Premier Division and Division 1 Only)
4.8. Judging a wide ball: In addition to Law 25, the following shall apply: Any offside or leg side delivery which, in the opinion of the umpire, does not give the batsmen a reasonable opportunity to score shall be called a wide. A WIDE BALL SHOULD BE CALLED FOR ANY BALL THAT PASSES ON THE LEG SIDE OF THE STUMPS. The only exception to this rule is if the batsmen has moved to the leg side and the ball passes between him and the stumps, in which case a wide is not to be called.

We lost by 2 runs and on at least 2 occcasions in our innings (one when I was batting), the ball passed on the legside of the stumps and a wide ball was not called. In a close game, I can analyse every run that we conceded and every missed opportunity for run scoring not taken but when everything seems to be going against you... this was the last thing me or my team needed.

The cynics will say 'Well... when you get relegated you won't have to worry about leg side wides, will you?'.

But I'm not entertaining any thoughts of relegation...

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Ingatestone & Fryerning 1st XI Batting

Player name		Runs
extras TOTAL :	2nb 18w 1b 6lb for 9 wickets	27 223 (45.0 overs)
G Jeater	b J Fitzwater	0
G Valentine	ct Bloom Bowled Brown	37
F Kendon	b Duggan	9
A Partha	ct Swan Bowled Duggan	16
G Smith	lbw Duggan	15
J Bates	lbw D Bloom	49
A Pudney	ct Richardson Bowled Tucker	12
P Fletcher	Not Out	46
J Batchelor	ct Tucker Bowled D Bloom	4
R Junde	run out Richardson/Tucker	8
L Emberson	Not Out	0